Veteran songwriter Robbie Fulks learned bluegrass music from his upbringing in small towns in Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina, and it forms the foundation of his music.

On his new album, “Upland Stories,” his 12th in a string that began in 1996, his thoughtful songs cover a musical range from soft acoustic ballads such as “Alabama at Night” to the stark, hard-picked bluegrass of “America Is a Hard Religion.” (Those two songs and “A Miracle” were inspired by writer James Agee’s trip to Alabama in 1936.)

Fulks has an appealing tenor voice and a way with using it to imbue his songs with emotional resonance. In “Needed,” the album’s most powerful song, a father’s advice to his 18-year-old son comes with a compelling account of his own moment of truth that reveals much about the hard choices that come with maturity.

Sam Gnerre has worked for the Daily Breeze in Torrance since 1984. He grew up in Fontana, Calif., and is a graduate of Fontana High School. He earned a B.A. in English literature from the University of California, Riverside, and a Master's degree in library science from UCLA. He was hired at the Daily Breeze in 1984 to help with the conversion of the paper's manual clip file system to an online database of archived stories. Currently, he writes the paper's weekly News Quiz, does a weekly music CD review, and researches and writes local history articles for the South Bay History blog, in addition to his current duties as a night website editor for the Southern California News Group.